Excellent overview of elections leading up to the war

I’ve presented some short pieces about mid-19th century elections here before (here, here, and here), but the following video shows just how complicated it is to gather meaning from those elections. As Dr. Ayers says that we can’t look at the elections from the perspective that war was coming, but should take time to look at each election, one at a time, to learn just how uncertain the nation was, even down to the presidential election of 1860. This is good stuff… I especially enjoy the visuals with the maps.

Thanks again, Kevin. One thing that I was hoping that he would address was the way in which they voted. I’ve seen some mixed information. Some sources mention oral voting, while others suggest there were ballot boxes.